The Amazons
“I was recently speaking to Maggie Rogers in New York,” says The Amazons’ frontman Matt Thomson, reminiscing on one of the many check-ins they’ve had since they became friends back at Glastonbury 2017. “We talked about how the dress rehearsal for life is over, so we’d better make our mark now.”
‘Now’ – it’s a strong word that speaks to the urgency and ethos of the Reading band’s unashamedly rock fourth album, ‘21st Century Fiction’. This is the sound of “a man in his late 20s, struggling with unrealistic ideals of masculinity and a sense of unfulfilled promise”, surrounded by “a world plagued by chaos”. This is the time to take stock and captain your own ship.
Even for a band with three top 10 albums to their name, nothing is certain. The years since 2022’s festival-ready ‘How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me?’ saw founding member, drummer and “big brother” Joe Emmett make his exit from the band, forcing the remaining members to take a long, hard look at themselves and recalibrate. There was a more predictable record brewing that almost became The Amazons’ fourth album, but it gave way to something more pressing, personal and authentic.
“Obviously the first record [self-titled 2017] was wide-eyed, because we were just enjoying every moment of it,” remembers Thomson. “Our relationship with self-imposed pressure became clear on the second and third records – the idea that we’re making music that would be a vehicle to other goals. We had to run those bad habits into the ground and start again.”
The fuse was lit for ‘21st Century Fiction’ with launch single and opening track ‘Living A Lie’ – where Kanye West ‘Yeezus’ rhythms punch into a pummelling Nine Inch Nails industrial soundscape as Thomson cuts to the core of the record: find your own truth, because everything else you’ve been sold is a fantasy.
“It comes from the frustration of being in that place where my 20s were ending and being really cognisant of that,” says Thomson, of that spot where the adolescent dream collapses under “self-flagellation; always wondering what’s around the corner, always scolding myself for not matching up to some unattainable ideals of what it means to be a successful band or even just a man.”
How did the teenage Thomson imagine his life as he approached 30?
“I definitely imagined financial security, having a house,” he says, admitting that the state of the economy and a music industry in turmoil has saw these milestones fall by the wayside. “I also wasn’t happy about the composition of myself when I looked in the mirror. I spent thousands of pounds in my 20s on personal trainers, supplements and the idea that I was going to be fitter, stronger and look like the people you’d see on Instagram and in the movies.
“I thought I’d get closer to the ideal of what a man should be: stoic, doesn’t talk much, sexy, elegant, always knows what to say, has practical skills, financial fluency. I was thinking about entering my 30s, and I wasn’t amounting to any of that.”
These were songs that Thomson needed to write, not just to lift himself from the doldrums but for a generation of young males with the same struggles. “We’re 90s kids, so we’re the last children of the 20th Century. And being children of the 20th Century came with a worldview and expectation of what adulthood would look like in the 21st. Expectations of progress and social mobility, when in fact we were being led down a garden path. But it does feel there’s a cultural reckoning building. There are storm clouds.”